The List
by Ultrawoman
Summary: One-Shot. Eliot wants to sleep but Parker is keeping him awake by being decidedly restless. Something is on her mind, and it's not the easiest thing to talk about. AU with established E/P pairing.


**A/N: I keep finding one-shots languishing on my hard-drive that were never posted. This one was written in April, checked and betaed, but never shared, so here it is. Based on a prompt from my good friend southrnbygrace, and that prompt was 'sleep deprivation'. I'm not sure this is what she meant, but I hope she (and anyone else who decides to read it) likes it anyway :)**

_**Disclaimer: All recognisable characters from Leverage belong to John Rogers, Chris Downey, Dean Devlin, TNT, and other folks that aren't me.**_

The List

The bed bounced around behind him some more, and Eliot fought to ignore it. Then the pillow punching and the deep sighing started up again. This was impossible.

"Parker!" he growled, not so harshly as to really be angry, but frustrated most definitely.

She had to know she was being the very worst bedfellow right now. It wasn't as if she wasn't used to sharing the space at night. The couple had been together long enough now, she ought to be used to it. Sometimes she slept in Eliot's arms, other times they just wanted a little space and were apart, but that was fine. There were times when she had nightmares, and other times when he did. They learnt to cope with each other's quirks, no problem, but tonight was different.

Eliot propped himself up on one elbow and flipped on the lamp. He turned over to find Parker attacking her pillow some more and fighting with the sheets. This was ridiculous.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked, trying not to sound mad, since that wouldn't help.

Unfortunately, he was starting to feel more than a little annoyed by her behaviour. It had been a long day, in which Eliot had been in two vicious fights, plus there had been a lot of waiting around in a confined space with Hardison jabbering in his ear. Eliot was so done with today, he just wanted some sleep before everything kicked off again. When Parker came and joined him a half hour later, he had been close to sleep but not quite there. He felt her climb under the covers behind him. She had leant over, planted a kiss on his shoulder blade and whispered 'goodnight, Eliot' before laying down to go to sleep. At least that was what he assumed she was going to do. It was now an hour later and she hadn't laid still for more than five minutes together in all that time. Something was wrong.

"I was trying to sleep," said Parker in answer to Eliot's question. "What?" she checked when he continued to stare at her incredulously through locks of mussed up hair.

"Parker, honey," he sighed, pushing said hair back out of his eyes. "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing," she answered too quickly, folding her arms over her chest.

Eliot pulled himself up to sit beside her and tried again.

"Talk to me, Parker," he urged her. "This is me, remember? You can tell me. Whatever it is, it's fine."

She knew that already. Eliot always understood her and never minded her saying anything to him, even if it did sound totally dumb. He would call her on her crazy, that was for sure, but he was never mean about it, not even in the beginning. Since they had decided to dive into a romance, things had only gotten better, at least Parker thought so. Alone together in the dark, she had revealed most of her darkest secrets, and Eliot had too. They had laughed and cried over so many things here in this room, and she loved that they could. Somehow what she had to say now didn't seem so okay.

"I was talking to Sophie today," she admitted eventually, looking everywhere but at Eliot. "Y'know, one of those chats that women have, the whole girl-talk thing," she sighed, picking at her nails, fumbling with the covers, anything so she didn't have to look directly at Eliot.

Right now, he wasn't so sure he wanted to know what was on Parker's mind. Girl-talk usually meant discussing guys, boyfriends specifically, sometimes sex too. Eliot wasn't sure how he felt about Parker and Sophie talking about him, and presumably Nate, in that way, maybe making comparisons. Not that the hitter was afraid of coming off badly or anything, but it was the principle of the thing.

"Parker, that's not an explanation for why you can't sleep," he pointed out when she was quiet too long - they had come this far, it seemed he was going to have to hear the rest.

"Sophie hasn't slept with as many guys as I thought," she said suddenly. "I mean, she's kissed plenty from what I can tell, mostly for cons, but her sex list is pretty short."

"Okay," Eliot nodded as he considered that.

It made sense actually. At heart, Sophie was a romantic and she had class. He couldn't imagine her being the type to dive into bed with whatever guy asked or even whichever one would get her what she wanted. He imagined she'd have to fancy herself in love to go that far. As for Nate, Eliot was willing to lay money that his list was no longer than Maggie and Sophie, and if it was, you could probably still count the whole lot on one hand. These thoughts distracted him long enough that by the time Eliot realised, through the tiredness, where Parker was going with this conversation, it was too late to back-pedal out.

"Eliot, how long is your list?"

There it was. The question he had been dreading for a whole five seconds before it came, because somehow through the fog of a mild concussion and such, he hadn't realised it was coming any sooner. How many women he had slept with, that was what was bothering Parker. To be fair, they hadn't really talked about this kind of thing before. He had established, in a roundabout way, that Parker was not a virgin before he ever made a move with her, but he wasn't entirely sure what experience she really had. She was pretty gung ho about getting him in the sack once they established they cared about each other, but that didn't necessarily mean she had been round the block as many times as him. Honestly, Eliot hoped she hadn't.

"Eliot?" she literally prodded him in the bicep with her index finger. "You're not answering the question!"

He knew that already, and he hated it. It wasn't so much that she had asked the question, or even that he didn't know the answer, because he did know. He could name every single woman he had taken into his bed, and that was no lie. It was just that in this particular moment, he wasn't all that proud of his long list of conquests. If Hardison asked, he would happily tell him how many multiples of ten he had slept with compared to what had to be a small number on the hacker's list. Unfortunately, it was Parker that was asking, the first woman in a whole lot of years he could truly say he loved. As confident as she was in all things she could do when it came to heists and such, relationships made Parker so insecure, and the number of women Eliot had previously been with didn't seem like it could possibly help much.

"Does it really matter?" he asked, running a hand over his face, already knowing that it had to or she never would have asked.

"No," she shook her head, surprising him. "I just... It can't make me love you any less whether you've slept with ten woman or a hundred or a thousand," she explained, as he watched her through the fingers of his hand still half over his face. "But somehow I just kind of need to know, how many girls you made love to before me."

Eliot couldn't help the smile that crept across his lips then. He shifted closer to Parker in the bed, put a gentle hand to her cheek and turned her head until she faced him. Her eyes were wide and innocent as ever when he leaned in to kiss her lips, lingering after with his forehead against her own.

"Parker, you are the second woman in my life I ever made love to," he promised her. "And I promise you this, you will be the last."

At first she looked a little confused, and he didn't wonder at it. Parker was whip smart, but there were times when she just got a little tangled in terminology and altogether flummoxed by anything unexpectedly romantic or sweet. She knew all about Aimee, and in a moment she realised that the words she used in her second question were very different to her first. Eliot had a lot of sex over the years, but he never loved any of those women. Just Aimee back then, and now Parker herself. A smile formed on her lips and only grew when she focused on his last sentiment. She wasn't his first love, but she would be his last. She giggled then, pushing herself into his arms, crashing her lips to his own. Eliot Spencer was mostly a man of action, but he did have a way with words sometimes. She loved both sides of him that way.

Parker was on top of Eliot, kissing him senseless when suddenly she pulled away. From her position straddling him, she looked down with a very serious expression. He was about to ask what was wrong when she spoke.

"I just want you to know, before you, there were only two other guys," she explained, carrying on even when Eliot shook his head to let her know she didn't have to. "But when I think about it, I just... rationalise them away," she said, waving her hand in a gesture of dismissal. "They didn't love me, I didn't love them, and... well, I never did get that far with Hardison, so... I like to think of you as my first, and my last," she said with some consideration. "That okay?"

"More than okay, sweetheart," he promised her, reaching up to pull her back down. "I am truly honoured."

When he kissed her then, the world went away, the way it did sometimes when passion ignited between them. Parker didn't mind, but she was oddly surprised when Eliot's hands slid down her body and under the covers.

"Hey," she exclaimed, stopping him in his tracks. "I thought you were tired," she checked, eyebrow raised, smirk on her lips to rival any he had ever worn himself.

"Sleep's over-rated," he whispered in her ear, more than just his words making her gasp.

Sleep deprivation never felt so good.

The End


End file.
